Satyaraj Hazarika, IPS
DIG (Central Range), Assam
Introduction: In the fall of 1950 President Truman brought Thailand under MDAP (Military Defense Assistance Program) later MAP. When the US was busy with its alliance with Thailand a little boy of 16 in 1950, launched a local militia in his home town. US policy to scale up covert ops in Indo-China in the face of rising communism in Burma-Thailand border, came after a year back in 1949 Mao's army pushed 14,000 KMT into Burma's Shan state in 1949.
In 1950 KMT got US backing and KMT General Tuan Shi-wen turned a blind eye to the opium trade, as fighting communism was his only obsession. That little boy was Chang Chi-fu better known as Khun Sa who emerged from the misty hills of Northern Shan state into world glare.
And as President Truman authorised the beginning of covert operations the sixteen year old boy Chang Chi-fu were trained by KMT troops. Drug trafficking is the mainstay of the infamous Golden Triangle, the region where Thailand's Chiang Rai province meets Myanmar's Shan State and Laos border. The Golden Triangle of South East Asia lies at the heart of global heroin trade accounting for at least 60 percent of opium production. Alfred W. McCoy's definitive study, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, has received worldwide attention to the infamous Golden Triangle. The name Golden Triangle was coined by a CIA operative.
The KMT presence in Shan State also saw increase in poppy cultivation from 18 tonnes in 1958 to 400-600 tonnes in 1970. A volume that got better of the Indian shipment of opium from 617 kg in 1660 to 87 MT by 1699 to China under the British rule. Burma's opium production soared to 550 tons in 1981 to 2,430 tons in 1989. Khun Sa controlled 80 percent of Burma's opium production and 50 percent of world's heroin supply.
Infamous as the highest opium producing region in the world it supplied over half of world's heroin. The US support to KMT and Shan insurgency against Rangoon saw the proliferation of opium cultivation.
Chang Chi-fu's father was ethnic Chinese and Shan mother shifted to Shan insurgency sixteen years later in 1976.
The group he formed was SUA (Shan United Army) that began offensive operations against Burmese troops in Northern Shan State.
How Heroin poured from Golden Triangle into US:
Khun Sa simply meant "Lord of Prosperity" in Tai language and he alternately sided with the Burmese government into late 1960s as KMT were attacked by Burmese troops. He became Rangoon's man in Shan State. But his Shan blood made uneasy alliance with Burmese when he formed SUA (Shan United Army) that merged with Tai Revolutionary Council in 1985 to form MTA (Mong Tai Army). To keep his heroin flowing into Thailand, Vietnam and US he created many influential friends and powerful enemies. By early 1980s the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) estimated that 70 percent of Heroin consumed in the US came from Golden Triangle, and making him one of the most wanted criminal.
In 1980s when his heroin was hitting New York streets, Khun Sa was dubbed the "Prince of Death" by US authorities. And all the while Khun Sa and his lieutenants are cutting deals with Myanmar army to either fight communist armies or ethnic Shan militants and laughing their way into the bank pocketing profits of at least 30 billion.
Khun Sa could intregate the Akha peasant who cultivated the opium in northern Burma to the down-and-out junkie in Washington, DC in a supply chain management in the pre-globalisation era.
Most of Khun Sa's heroin found way into US shores via Thailand and later in early 1990s through southern China and Hongkong.
During the time Khun Sa stormed the US market he shifted his operating base inside a small village Ruam Chai in northern Thailand's Chiang Rai province. Khun Sa was also never caught by DEA or US-backed forces but when the Thai government of Gen Kriangshak Chomanan fell the next General Prem Tinsulanonda made him run out of his Ruam Chai redoubt.
That was 1982 and alternating between heroin trafficking and insurgency in Myanmar and Thailand, his loss of base did not made him lose his business. Since the Chinese mafia that provides labs, chemists and chemicals to process the opium into heroin wanted a safe environment they turn to Khun Sa. He could only guarantee that in the 9,50,000 sq KM Golden Triangle area. But Myanmar was wary of Khun Sa for he has the capacity to turn on the Shan independence movement by his Mong Tai Army.
Conclusion: Just like Pablo Escobar is for Cocaine, Khun Sa is the King of Heroin who made billions of dollars selling heroin to the GIs of US Army in South Vietnam to the streets of Las Vegas. His fortunes and that of heroin rose as the Cold War ranged in Southeast Asia. Khun Sa was the poster boy of Rangoon Generals as he hit the KMT forces in 1960s as part of Burmese army push-back operations. But his hobnobbing with Shan insurgency also made him a wily customer that made Khun Sa to move base to Chiang Rai province. He endeared himself to the Thai Generals made him operate with impunity. But pressure from the US made its ally in Southeast Asia, Thailand to act and eject Khun Sa out. He fended of Myanmar army units to capture him, as by then his MTA grew to be a 20,000 strong army. After intense parleys with Rangoon and Bangkok Khun Sa and his MTA surrendered with 1700 rebel soldiers. In the aftermath of his surrendered the Shan insurgency was obliterated and some 15,000 Shan fighters fleeing to refugee camps inside Thailand and remaining ones joining SSA-S. Myanmar was not taking lightly the assassination of SSA leaders lightly. SSA sometimes referred to as SSA-North whose political wing is SSPP (Shan State Progressive Party) that was more conciliatory to the Burmese government.
From his day of surrender till his death on 26th Oct, 2007 in Yangon he lived in seclusion.
The void left by Khun Sa is filled by paramilitary groups like Kaung Kha, "a people's militia force" that defends the land from Myanmar army's arch rivals, the indigenous rebels.
In heroin trade as well as in politics Khun Sa presides over Northern Shan State. A splinter group affiliated to MTA now joined SSA (S) under Yawd Serk the chairman of the powerful RCSS(Restoration Council of Shan State) declaring a Shan autonomous State in exile from Bangkok. And another former MTA commander and close confidant Lt Sai Mon started a new militia in Eastern Shan State, and in 2020 ready to contest elections as a candidate from USDP(Union Solidarity and Development Party), from Lashio dist. USDP is backed by Myanmar army. Lashio is also the home base of Manpang militia, run by Sai Mon's son. Like "Caesar dead is more powerful than Caesar alive", in Shakespearean drama, "Julius Caesar", Khun Sa refuses to fade away from popular imagination.
